The streets of Seoul at night were a strange mixture of neon brilliance and unsettling quiet. Ji-Hoon walked home, his collar turned up against the chill of the late autumn air, his steps echoing on the pavement. The city that had once felt full of life now seemed like a shadow of itself, as though even the buildings were holding their breath.

It was nearly 1 AM. His shift at the newspaper had ended hours ago, but the deadline for his latest article loomed like a dark cloud. The story wasn’t coming together the way it should have, and his editor was growing impatient. Ji-Hoon needed a break, but the more he tried to think, the more elusive the answer became.

As he walked down a narrow side street, something caught his eye. At the end of the alley stood an old payphone. Its flickering neon sign buzzed erratically, casting an eerie, almost hypnotic glow. It was a relic from a bygone era, long abandoned, no longer functional.

Still, the phone rang.

Ji-Hoon stopped, a weird chill creeping up his spine. In a city this crowded, there was no reason for a payphone to be ringing at this hour. He glanced up and down the street, but it was empty. No one else around. Just him and the phone.

Curiosity overcame him. As a journalist, it was in his nature to investigate things, especially things that seemed out of place. Maybe someone was playing a prank, or maybe it was some kind of strange, forgotten emergency. But he couldn’t ignore it. It was too weird, too mysterious.

He took a deep breath, crossed the street, and approached the phone. The ringing continued, insistent, as if calling him specifically.

With a quick glance over his shoulder, he lifted the receiver.

"Yeoboseyo?" he said, his voice breaking the silence of the alley.

For a long moment, there was nothing but static on the other end. Ji-Hoon felt his heart race, unsure of what to make of it. He opened his mouth to speak again, but then came the voice.

"You are not who you think you are."

The words echoed in his mind, as if they were inside his head. Ji-Hoon froze, his hand gripping the receiver tightly, as though he could stop his heart from pounding. The voice was faint, barely a whisper, but it felt as though it came from inside the alley—not from the phone.

“What the hell is this?” Ji-Hoon muttered under his breath. “Who is this?”

But the only response was more static. The hairs on his neck stood on end as he heard the faintest of breaths, like someone was standing right behind him.

“Hello?” he said again, his voice wavering.

No reply. Just silence.

Ji-Hoon quickly slammed the receiver down, his pulse pounding in his ears. He turned around and scanned the street. It was still empty. Just the hum of distant traffic, the rustling of a garbage can as a stray cat rummaged through it. But everything else was quiet. Too quiet.

He stepped back, wiping his sweaty palms on his jacket. It was a prank, he told himself. Probably some drunk idiot messing with him. Still, something gnawed at him as he walked away.

It wasn’t until he was back in his apartment that Ji-Hoon began to relax, convincing himself it was nothing. A mistake, a joke, an empty moment in a city full of distractions. He tossed his jacket on the couch and began making tea, trying to shake off the weird feeling.

He had just turned the kettle on when he heard it.

Beep.

The sound of his answering machine light blinking.

He froze, the kettle forgotten. The answering machine was one of the old models—it didn’t even have a caller ID.

With a sinking feeling, he stepped toward the machine. Pressing play, his hand trembling as he waited.

The machine clicked on.

Static.

Then, the voice from the phone.

"You are not who you think you are."

The same whisper. The same words.

Ji-Hoon felt his stomach drop. He checked the machine, his hands shaking as he pressed rewind. But there was no mistake. The voice was the same, chilling and almost familiar.

His phone hadn’t rung. The machine was the only one that had captured the message.

The more he thought about it, the worse it got. His phone was unlisted. Only a handful of people had the number—family, a couple of close friends, and the newspaper office. No one else should have had access to it. So how had someone gotten it?

Ji-Hoon quickly reached for his phone, intending to call the office. But before his finger could press the first digit, the phone rang again.

The screen flashed—no caller ID.

For a moment, he simply stared at it, his mind blank, unable to decide whether to pick up or hang up. His heart raced. There was no way he was going to answer it again. Not after that strange message.

It rang again.

And then again.

Ji-Hoon looked at the clock. 1:13 AM.

With a deep breath, he forced himself to stand up and walk toward the phone. As his hand reached for it, a thought crossed his mind:

Some calls should never be answered.

"Some calls should never be answered."

Ji-Hoon stared at the ringing phone, his hand hovering over the receiver. The screen remained blank—no number, no caller ID. Just the sound, sharp and insistent, cutting through the silence of his apartment.

His heart pounded. 1:13 AM.

A second passed. Then another.

The phone stopped ringing.

Ji-Hoon let out a slow breath, his body tense. He should have picked it up. Or maybe he shouldn’t have. Either way, he wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight.

Instead of going back to bed, he grabbed a notebook and scribbled down the words from the answering machine.

"You are not who you think you are."

The phrase sat on the page like an accusation. His mind raced with possibilities—a prank? A threat? A warning?

Whatever it was, it didn’t feel random.

The next morning, Ji-Hoon was back at the newspaper office, drinking his fourth coffee of the day and scrolling through the crime archives. His gut told him this phone call was more than a prank, but he had no proof. He needed something—a pattern, a previous case, anything that could make sense of what had happened.

“Working on another dead-end piece?” a voice interrupted.

Ji-Hoon looked up to see Min-Soo, a fellow journalist, leaning against his desk with a smirk. He was the type of reporter who always found himself on the front page, mostly because he had connections in all the wrong places.

Ji-Hoon ignored the jab. “I need access to old police reports. Anything weird involving payphones.”

Min-Soo raised an eyebrow. “What, you got a haunted phone story now? That won’t sell unless there’s a murder or a missing person.”

Ji-Hoon clenched his jaw. That was the problem—there was no case. No crime. Just a voice on the phone that had no reason to exist.

Still, he wasn’t going to let it go.

“Just let me know if you hear anything,” Ji-Hoon said.

Min-Soo shrugged. “Sure. But if your ghost story flops, don’t come crying to me.”

Ji-Hoon turned back to his screen and kept searching.

By afternoon, Ji-Hoon had nothing. No strange reports, no past cases, nothing involving mysterious payphones or untraceable calls.

Frustrated, he switched tactics. If he couldn’t find a case, he could at least check the payphone itself. Maybe it was a malfunctioning line or set up for illegal activity. Something logical.

After finishing up at the office, he made his way back to the alley where the phone had first rung. The street was just as empty as the night before.

Except this time, the payphone was gone.

Ji-Hoon stopped in his tracks. His breath caught in his throat.

The booth—the one that had been standing here for years, abandoned and covered in graffiti—was missing.

He stepped forward, his hands running over the cold concrete wall where the booth had been attached. There was no sign it had ever been there. No marks, no wires, no bolts in the ground. Just empty space.

His pulse raced.

Was he losing his mind?

He turned, scanning the street, half-expecting someone to be watching him. But no one paid him any attention. Cars rolled by. A businessman checked his watch. A group of students laughed as they walked past.

It was as if the payphone had never existed.

Ji-Hoon took out his notebook, flipping to the page where he had written the phrase from the phone call. His fingers shook slightly as he reread it.

"You are not who you think you are."

For the first time, he felt real fear.

Something was wrong.

And he had no idea how deep it went.

That night, Ji-Hoon made a decision.

He wasn’t going to let this drop. He was a journalist—he chased the truth. Even if the truth was twisting reality itself.

But as he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, his mind full of unanswered questions, his phone rang again.

1:13 AM.

This time, he picked it up.

And the voice whispered:

"They erased you."

"Some names disappear before the person does."

Ji-Hoon gripped the phone so tightly his knuckles turned white. His breath hitched as the whisper echoed in his ear.

"They erased you."

Static crackled on the line, a suffocating silence stretching between him and the unseen caller.

"Who are you?" Ji-Hoon’s voice came out more steady than he felt. "What the hell do you mean, 'erased'?"

But there was no response.

Only breathing.

Faint, controlled, like someone was listening.

Then—

Click.

The call disconnected.

Ji-Hoon pulled the phone away from his ear, staring at the screen. No number. No trace of the call.

His hands were shaking now. He had been a reporter for years, covered murders, scandals, disappearances. He had seen people vanish from the public eye, whether through bribery, power, or fear. But this was different.

This wasn’t just someone being erased.

This felt personal.

The next morning, Ji-Hoon walked into the newspaper office feeling like a ghost himself. He had barely slept, his mind running in circles around the missing payphone, the untraceable calls, the whispers that made no sense.

He needed answers.

He needed a lead.

He needed someone else to confirm that he wasn’t going crazy.

“Min-Soo,” he said, dropping into the seat across from his co-worker’s desk. “I need a favor.”

Min-Soo groaned, barely looking up from his pile of notes. “You still on that phone thing?”

Ji-Hoon didn’t answer. He just pulled out his notebook, flipping to the page with the phrase from the call.

Min-Soo sighed. “Alright, what now?”

“I need you to check something for me,” Ji-Hoon said, lowering his voice. “Search for my name.”

Min-Soo blinked. “Your name?”

“In our archives. And in government records.”

A pause. Then a slow, skeptical smirk.

“Are you serious?”

“Dead serious.”

Min-Soo chuckled. “What, you think you don’t exist?”

Ji-Hoon didn’t laugh.

He didn’t even blink.

And something about his expression must have unsettled Min-Soo because the smirk faded.

“Fine,” Min-Soo muttered, turning to his computer. “But when I find your name exactly where it’s supposed to be, you owe me a drink.”

Ji-Hoon leaned forward, watching the screen as Min-Soo typed. The newsroom buzzed around them—phones ringing, reporters shouting, keyboards clacking.

But Ji-Hoon barely heard any of it.

Min-Soo frowned at the screen.

Then he tried again.

Then again.

His fingers slowed. His expression changed.

“...That’s weird,” he murmured.

Ji-Hoon’s stomach clenched. “What?”

Min-Soo scrolled rapidly. “Your articles are here. But—” He stopped, eyes narrowing. “Your name isn’t.”

A chill crawled down Ji-Hoon’s spine.

Min-Soo turned to him, confused. “Your bylines are missing. The stories are still in the system, but they’re all listed as 'Unknown Author.'”

Ji-Hoon snatched the mouse and scrolled through the list himself. His articles—years’ worth of investigative work—were still there.

But they weren’t his.

It was as if he had never written them.

“What the hell?” he whispered.

“I—maybe it’s a system error?” Min-Soo suggested, though his voice held no real confidence. “Or maybe someone—”

He stopped.

Because when he searched the government database, the problem got worse.

Ji-Hoon’s ID number didn’t exist.

His birth records were gone.

There were no official records of him before the age of 18.

His existence began and ended in fragments, scattered and incomplete.

Ji-Hoon pushed back from the desk, his pulse hammering.

Someone had erased him.

Not just his name on a few articles. Not just some database glitch.

His entire past.

Min-Soo let out a low whistle. “Okay, uh... now it’s getting creepy.”

Ji-Hoon swallowed hard, his mind racing.

The payphone. The voice. The disappearing records.

There was only one explanation that made sense.

Someone—or something—had started wiping him from existence.

And the worst part?

He had no idea why.

That night, Ji-Hoon didn’t go home.

He sat in a dingy 24-hour diner, staring at his reflection in the window. The neon signs outside flickered, casting strange colors across his face.

He pulled out his phone and dialed a number he hadn’t called in years.

His mother.

It rang.

And rang.

And rang.

Then—

"The number you have dialed is no longer in service."

Ji-Hoon’s breath caught.

He tried again.

Same message.

A wave of nausea rolled through him.

Was his family next?

Was this erasure spreading?

And if it was—

How much longer did he have?

At exactly 1:13 AM, his phone rang again.

This time, he answered before the first ring finished.

"Do you believe me now?" the whisper asked.

Ji-Hoon closed his eyes.

“…Who are you?”

The whisper was closer this time.

"I’m the only one who remembers you."

"Some disappearances are planned. Others are warnings."